I am looking for a little info on some ammo I came across in a friends basement who passed away recently. His wife called and asked me to go through his firearms and take what I wanted and she would throw out the rest. I told her I would and came across around 375 rounds of linked 30-06 ammo. One is a full can of Ball M2 with a 1956 date on the can. All rounds have a 1955 headstamp. Through a little research I have determined that it is for a Browning 1919. I don't have one sitting on the shelf and have nothing to shoot it out of. I was able to secure a lot more things with personal value to me so I thought I might pass this on to someone who can use it. Is this anything of value or just a display. These are live rounds and every 5th round is a tracer with an orange tip on it. Any insight would be great. Thanks

Going rate at shows these days for 30-06 non-corrosive ammo is about a buck a round. 1956 date is definitely non-corrosive. Tracer might be difficult to sell as it's bad at starting fires but if it sells it will bring at least the same price. The links aren't really worth anything.

The ammo is exactly the same as all other ball and tracer ammo, and is great Garand ammo. I'm assuming this is US GI ammo, either LC headstamp or WCC, TW, RA, or another US maker.

There are a fair number of owners of semi-auto belt fed guns and some folks have belt fed machineguns. That ammo will work in the M1919 (all variations) as is. Post on the site Buy and Sell forum and see what happens.

Yes you can indeed buy .30-06 from CMP for about .50 per round, but lots of people don't know how, or don't meet all the requirements. The OP was asking about the value and that's what I was basing my answer on, selling to a non-CMP buyer. Those of us in the know don't buy .30-06 at gun shows hopefully.

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